"Soon I shall not be here to trouble you, Richard. Papa has decided that we sail next week, on the Annapolis, for home."
"Home!" I gasped. "England?"
"I am going to make my bow to royalty," replied she, dropping a deep curtsey. "Your Majesty, this is Miss Manners, of the province of Maryland!"
"But next week!" I repeated, with a blank face. "Surely you cannot be ready for the Annapolis!"
"McAndrews has instructions to send our things after," said she. "There!
You are the first person I have told. You should feel honoured, sir."
I sat down upon the gra.s.s by the brook, and for the moment the sap of life seemed to have left me. Dolly continued to twine the flowers.
Through the trees sifted the voices and the music, sounds of happiness far away. When I looked up again, she was gazing into the water.
"Are you glad to go?" I asked.
"Of course," answered the minx, readily. "I shall see the world, and meet people of consequence."
"So you are going to England to meet people of consequence!" I cried bitterly.
"How provincial you are, Richard! What people of consequence have we here? The Governor and the honourable members of his Council, forsooth!
There is not a t.i.tle save his Excellency"s in our whole colony, and Virginia is scarce better provided."
"In spite of my feeling I was fain to laugh at this, knowing well that she had culled it all from little Mr. Marmaduke himself.
"All in good time," said I. "We shall have no lack of noted men presently."
"Mere two-penny heroes," she retorted. "I know your great men, such as Mr. Henry and Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams."
I began pulling up the gra.s.s savagely by the roots.
"I"ll lay a hundred guineas you have no regrets at leaving any of us, my fine miss!" I cried, getting to my feet. "You would rather be a lady of fashion than have the love of an honest man,--you who have the hearts of too many as it is."
Her eyes lighted, but with mirth. Laughing, she chose a little bunch of the lilies and worked them into my coat.
"Richard, you silly goose!" she said; "I dote upon seeing you in a temper."
I stood between anger and G.o.d knows what other feelings, now starting away, now coming back to her. But I always came back.
"You have ever said you would marry an earl, Dolly," I said sadly. "I believe you do not care for any of us one little bit."
She turned away, so that for the moment I could not see her face, then looked at me with exquisite archness over her shoulder. The low tones of her voice were of a richness indescribable. "Twas seldom she made use of them.
"You will be coming to Oxford, Richard."
"I fear not, Dolly," I replied soberly. "I fear not, now. Mr. Carvel is too feeble for me to leave him."
At that she turned to me, another mood coming like a gust of wind on the Chesapeake.
"Oh, how I wish they were all like you!" she cried, with a stamp of her foot. "Sometimes I despise gallantry. I hate the smooth compliments of your macaronies. I thank Heaven you are big and honest and clumsy and--"
"And what, Dorothy?" I asked, bewildered.
"And stupid," said she. "Now take me back, sir."
We had not gone thirty paces before we heard a hearty ba.s.s voice singing:
""It was a lover and his la.s.s, With a hey, with a ho, with a hey nonino.""
And there was Colonel Sharpe, straying along among the privet hedges.
And so the morning of her sailing came, so full of sadness for me. Why not confess, after nigh threescore years, that break of day found me pacing the deserted dock. At my back, across the open s.p.a.ce, was the irregular line of quaint, top-heavy shops since pa.s.sed away, their sightless windows barred by solid shutters of oak. The good ship Annapolis, which was to carry my playmate to broader scenes, lay among the shipping, in the gray roads just quickening with returning light.
How my heart ached that morning none shall ever know. But, as the sun shot a burning line across the water, a new salt breeze sprang up and fanned a hope into flame. "Twas the very breeze that was to blow Dorothy down the bay. Sleepy apprentices took down the shutters, and polished the windows until they shone again; and chipper Mr. Denton Jacques, who did such a thriving business opposite, presently appeared to wish me a bright good morning.
I knew that Captain Waring proposed to sail at ten of the clock; but after breakfasting, I was of two minds whether to see the last of Miss Dorothy, foreseeing a levee in her honour upon the ship. And so it proved. I had scarce set out in a pungy from the dock, when I perceived a dozen boats about the packet; and when I thrust my shoulders through the gangway, there was the company gathered at the mainmast. They made a gay bit of colour,--Dr. Courtenay in a green coat laced with fine Mechlin, Fitzhugh in claret and silk stockings of a Quaker gray, and the other gentlemen as smartly drest. The Dulany girls and the Fotheringay girls, and I know not how many others, were there to see their friend off for home.
In the midst of them was Dorothy, in a crimson silk capuchin, for we had had one of our changes of weather. It was she who spied me as I was drawing down the ladder again.
"It is Richard!" I heard her cry. "He has come at last."
I gripped the rope tightly, sprang to the deck, and faced her as she came out of the group, her lips parted, and the red of her cheeks vying with the hood she wore. I took her hand silently.
"I had given you over, Richard," she said, her eyes looking reproachfully into mine. "Another ten minutes, and I should not have seen you."
Indeed, the topsails were already off the caps, the captain on deck, and the men gathered at the capstan.
"Have you not enough to wish you good-by, Dolly?" I asked.
"There must be a score of them," said my lady, making a face. "But I wish to talk to you."
Mr. Marmaduke, however, had no notion of allowing a gathering in his daughter"s honour to be broken up. It had been wickedly said of him, when the news of his coming departure got around, that he feared Dorothy would fall in love with some provincial beau before he could get her within reach of a t.i.tle. When he observed me talking to her, he hurried away from the friends come to see his wife (he had none himself), and seizing me by the arm implored me to take good care of my dear grandfather, and to write them occasionally of the state of his health, and likewise how I fared.
"I think Dorothy will miss you more than any of them, Richard," said he.
"Will you not, my dear?"
But she was gone. I, too, left him without ceremony, to speak to Mrs.
Manners, who was standing apart, looking sh.o.r.eward. She started when I spoke, and I saw that tears were in her eyes.
"Are you coming back soon, Mrs. Manners?" I asked.
"Oh, Richard! I don"t know," she answered, with a little choke in her voice. "I hope it will be no longer than a year, for we are leaving all we hold dear for a very doubtful pleasure."
She bade me write to them, as Mr. Marmaduke had, only she was sincere.
Then the mate came, with his hand to his cap, respectfully to inform visitors that the anchor was up and down. Albeit my spirits were low, "twas no small entertainment to watch the doctor and his rivals at their adieus. Courtenay had at his command an hundred subterfuges to outwit his fellows, and so manoeuvred that he was the last of them over the side. As for me, luckily, I was not worth a thought. But as the doctor leaned over her hand, I vowed in my heart that if Dorothy was to be gained only in such a way I would not stoop to it. And in my heart I doubted it. I heard Dr. Courtenay hint, looking meaningly at her cloak, that some of his flowers would not have appeared amiss there.
"Why, doctor," says my lady aloud, with a side glance at me, "the wisdom of Solomon might not choose out of twenty baskets."
And this was all the thanks he got for near a boat-load of roses! When at length the impatient mate had hurried him off, Dolly turned to me. It was not in me to say more than: